<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>phase one by ErinNovelist</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25517566">phase one</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/ErinNovelist/pseuds/ErinNovelist'>ErinNovelist</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Haikyuu!!</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Canon Compliant, Injury, Injury Recovery, M/M, No beta we die like mne, Volleyball</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-07-26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-07-26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 06:36:10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,988</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25517566</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/ErinNovelist/pseuds/ErinNovelist</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>He’s thirteen again and curled up in pain on the white end lines of the volleyball court. Silence lingers, the resounding thunderclaps of the bouncing ball echoing like final heartbeats. Oikawa doesn’t know what happened, just felt the snap, catch and pop when he landed, and now he’s collapsed like a marionette with its strings cut.</p><p>He's thirteen again at twenty-two, and all he wants is Iwaizumi.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Iwaizumi Hajime/Oikawa Tooru</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>5</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>172</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>phase one</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>first iwaoi fic, so sorry if it sucks. just me dealing with the prospect of injury rehabilitation and iwaizumi as an athletic trainer (because fuck YES, way to represent those rehab sciences!).</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>In a gym in San Juan, Argentina, home of the CA San Juan Voléy club, Oikawa serves a volleyball.</p><p>The serve toss is good, albeit a little low, but he doesn’t care. His body moves into a long-remembered dance, fluid and fast as he steps into motion, and it’s habit honed into instinct at this point. <em>One step, two, three</em>—he loses count and jumps, calloused hand slamming into the sweat-sticky leather of the volleyball. The ball sails across the court, over the net, and drills into the far left corner—<em>perfect</em> path and position.</p><p>Oikawa smiles, glee lighting up his face like a South American sunrise.</p><p>But then he lands, and he’s thirteen again.</p><p>He’s thirteen again and curled up in pain on the white end lines of the volleyball court. Silence lingers, the resounding thunderclaps of the bouncing ball echoing like final heartbeats. Oikawa doesn’t know what happened, just felt the <em>snap, catch</em> and <em>pop</em> when he landed, and now he’s collapsed like a marionette with its strings cut.</p><p>His knee—the <em>same damned knee</em>—twinges pitifully beneath the careful cage of his hands where they cradle the affected extremity. At twenty-two, he’s still scared to look at it: doesn’t want to see the swollen skin, feel bones shift in places they shouldn’t be, doesn’t want to know if his knee is even <em>there</em> anymore. Fear bubbles up like hot magma, simmering under the surface of his skin, and he nearly chokes from the heat.</p><p>He’s so, <em>so </em>afraid.</p><p>Oikawa isn’t sure how long he stays there, pressed together against the sweat-slick wooden floor, but the he can hear Gino’s voice reverberating through the gym. “<em>Oi</em>, Tohru, you good?”</p><p>He calls out hoarsely in English, “I landed wrong!”</p><p>“You okay?” His teammate and roommate asks, and there’s the pitter-patter of hurried footsteps across the court, but Oikawa is at a loss for words.</p><p>He’s been in this position before, on the cusp of nearly ten years ago, and even then he couldn’t place an injury when he went down. He just remembers that innate sense of wrongness, the way his weight didn’t fold along the smooth lines of gravity at the impact point of his jump. He’d crumbled fast and hard, couldn’t slow down the descent, and even with steady breathes and raising thoughts, all that lingered was the suffocating fear of the unknown.</p><p>“Get me to the trainers,” Oikawa grunts out, hissing when he tries to uncurl.</p><p>Heavy hands rest on his shoulders though, halting his movements. It’s Lucas, their outside hitter, who kneels down next to him and Gino with steady hands and a calm expression. “Easy, easy. We’re in no rush.”</p><p>Oikawa grabs onto his shirt, damp with sweat from their practice, and tangles his fingers in the fabric. “Help me to the trainer,” he says with no room for argument.</p><p>He’s been through this before, and while he may not know the extent of his injury, Oikawa at least knows there <em>is </em>one. Time is of the essence for some things in life, and he can’t take risks just to minimize the pain, especially when volleyball is his life.</p><p>Slowly but surely, the two men help Oikawa to his feet, and as they slowly make their way across the court, he can hear the muted voices of panic and pleas from his other teammates and coaching staff in the hallway. “Did anyone else see?” he asks them, embarrassment causing his heart to stammer in its frantic pattern.</p><p>“Just me,” Gino explains, and it’s enough for now. Oikawa likes to believe he’s invincible, likes to convince everyone else of that fact too, and when he’s proven wrong… Well, it has ramifications that extend beyond just him.</p><p>He’s thirteen again, and Iwaizumi is pinging his phone at ten o’clock in the evening to see how he’s doing after the follow-up appointment with his doctor. Oikawa uses the end of his crutch to push his cell off the nightstand so that he can’t see it anymore.</p><p>Then he’s twenty-two and limping down the hallway, leg held pitifully off the ground as Lucas and Gino navigate through a crowd of quizzical onlookers. There’s no Iwaizumi with his careful hands and cautious smile, whose eyes glimmer with tears that will never fall, but with a voice that cracks when he asks Oikawa’s parents if the setter will ever play again.</p><p>Oikawa closes his eyes at the memory and keeps going towards the training room. He still hasn’t looked at his knee.</p><p>He wants Iwaizumi.</p><p> </p><p>*</p><p> </p><p>The head athletic trainer for the San Juan club team is Lionel Fernandez. He’s forty-two and has been with the club for nearly a decade, watching star athletes either crash and burn or jump and soar. Oikawa has always believed himself to be the latter but can’t help to wonder whether this injury will set him back to the former.</p><p>Lionel rips the sheet of plastic wrap off and anchors it to the ice pack pressed against the slope of Oikawa’s knee. The skin beneath it is already swelling, and the pain throbs in time with his heartbeat. The ice does its best to take the edge off, but it’s not enough to stem his building panic that swells like smoke from a fire, and he can’t breathe can’t think can’t stop <em>can’t</em> <em>play</em>—</p><p>“Tohru.” It’s Gino’s voice, the deep baritone washing over him like a tidal wave. It’s sudden and strong, but also soothing, and so much like Iwaizumi’s that Oikawa wants to cry. “You need to calm down.”</p><p>“ACL,” comes Oikawa’s sharp retort. “I don’t need a doctor to tell me that.”</p><p>“We don’t know that yet,” Lionel says to him, a steady hand placed on his other knee. Oikawa begrudgingly allows it.</p><p>“I’ve hurt it before,” Oikawa tells them both, like he’s been telling them for the last hour, like he’s told the coaches and players and anyone who has ears that will <em>listen</em>. “I know what the fuck this feels like. It’s my god damn ACL.”</p><p>Lionel narrows his eyes and fixes a heavy gaze on Oikawa, whose hands are still trembling, playing with a curling edge of the plastic wrap around his knee. “I’m going to call Dr. Rodriguez,” he says, alluding to the team physician. “We’ll try to get you in tomorrow to see him, get some images taken. For now, I need you to take it easy and rest.”</p><p>All Oikawa can do is dip his head in an abrupt nod. If he tries to talk, he might start crying (<em>and no one needs to see that, Shittykawa!</em>)</p><p>For the next few minutes, Lionel goes over the proper care: the recommended icing time frames, keep it elevated, wrap it in an ACE, use crutches, etc.—but Oikawa tunes him out. Lionel keeps talking, Gino’s grip on his shoulder gets tighter and tighter, but all Oikawa can think about is the person that he desperately needs to call and have him be here.</p><p>Iwaizumi should be here <em>now</em>.</p><p>Later, Oikawa lays back on the mat table, head resting against the white-painted brick wall, and listens half-heartedly to the coaches talking to Lionel. There’s nothing he can do right now except play the waiting game, and he feels thirteen and helpless, and he’s not sure what to do until he feels the cool press of his cellphone into his helpless palm. He looks up, startled, and sees Gino with a grim smile, lips pressed together in a thin line.</p><p>“I’m your emergency contact, and I’m already here,” Gino explains. “But I think there’s some other people you’d rather talk to right now.”</p><p>Oikawa’s grip tightens on his cell phone, and then he closes his eyes and lets his shoulder shake, the first few tears slipping down his cheeks, thick and slow like candlewax. Fear flows through his veins as easily as blood, but it could all burst out at any moment, so he’s trying so hard to construct a dam that just keeps breaking to keep it all at bay.</p><p>“Thanks,” he bids his roommate, voice cracking. Gino nods and walks away to join the coaches and trainer.</p><p>With trembling fingers, Oikawa types out a text to Iwaizumi Hajime, who sits at a desk with a bored expression during a lecture at the University of California Irvine in the United States 5,500 miles away from San Juan.</p><p> </p>
<p></p><blockquote>
  <p><strong>Oikawa: </strong><em>Call me. It’s my knee</em>.</p>
  <p> </p>
</blockquote><p>His phone rings in his hands 36 seconds later.</p><p> </p><p>*</p><p> </p><p>“Did they say how long you’ll be out?” Iwaizumi asks in the solitude of Oikawa’s bedroom, voice hushed like he’s seated in a confessional, but there’s no amount of prayers or blessings that a priest could give to make this situation turn out any better.</p><p>Here, Oikawa laughs, but it’s something ragged, like a dead engine trying to sputter back to life. “You’re the trainer. Shouldn’t I be asking you that?”</p><p>He won’t meet Iwaizumi’s olive eyes, which track his every movement. His best friend has always had the talent of reading him easily, and Oikawa won’t give him the satisfaction of making it any easier. Even though Iwaizumi had boarded a plane to come to San Juan at Oikawa’s beckoning, there’s still so much that he wants to hide.</p><p>When did their strong base turn fragile? Why is he so afraid of breaking something that shouldn’t be breakable to begin with?</p><p>Iwaizumi, who’s currently in the first year of his master’s program at Irvine, simply smacks Oikawa across the back of his head. “Don’t be a smartass, you dumbass.”</p><p>“<em>Hey</em>! Don’t hit me. I’m the patient!” Oikawa flails at his hair, trying to fluff it back into peak perfection, while Iwaizumi glowers at him from his bedside, his own hair and clothes ruffled and rumpled from his long plane ride.</p><p>It was only thirteen days from the initial incident that tore Oikawa’s ACL, and he’s only a few days fresh from surgery, but Iwaizumi still came at the first available opportunity. There must be some deity watching out for him, Oikawa has decided, that let his injury coincide with Iwaizumi’s break from classes, otherwise, he’d be alone and in pain in an apartment while the rest of the world moves on without him, Iwaizumi included. Still though, Oikawa can’t help but wonder if Iwaizumi still suffered like him, the two separated for thirteen days.</p><p>His eyes flicker across Iwaizumi’s form, sprawled out in the longue chair besides his bed. He reads the tired slope of his shoulders, muscles tense under the thin fabric of his worn hoodie, the heaviness that hangs off his bones, dripping exhaustion in the shadows under his eyes and pale skin that seems gaunt in the low lighting… It all coalesces into a mosaic of stained glass, for Iwaizumi has always been Oikawa’s savior, but he’s been shattered into fragments hastily put back together time and time again.</p><p>He’s barely holding it together <em>now</em>.</p><p>“Dr. Rodriguez says it could be anywhere from six months to a year. Just depends how rehab goes, how it heals…” Oikawa’s voice trails off, letting Iwaizumi’s mind fill in the blanks. They’ve always been good at that.</p><p>“So a February comeback,” Iwaizumi muses.</p><p>“If I’m lucky.”</p><p>Iwaizumi glares at him. “Don’t be like that.”</p><p>Oikawa doesn’t grant that with a response. Instead, he stares at Iwaizumi for a few more seconds, the fading sunlight peeking through the curtains and giving the room an orange glow. It’s only early evening, but Oikawa figures that Iwaizumi could fall asleep now and still wake up late tomorrow.</p><p>“You don’t have to look so excited to see me,” Oikawa says suddenly, poking his friend in the ribs. Iwaizumi squirms under his touch, hides his smile, and pushes him away without a word. “You should come see me more often, you know. Maybe then you wouldn’t be such a tired bastard when you do.”</p><p>In the five years since Oikawa had moved to Argentina, Iwaizumi has only come three times, this emergency visit included. While the video chats and constant text messages keep them in one another’s orbit, an actual in-person meeting is usually few and far between, but it’s always been something Oikawa has needed like air to breathe or water to drink—a basic necessity for his continued survival.</p><p>Iwaizumi’s shoulders hunch even more, which is a feat unto itself. He’s so tightly wound that Oikawa half expects him to explode at any moment. It’s telling though, what effect time has had on them already, for Iwaizumi’s temper has thinned while Oikawa’s has thickened. That precarious balance they’d once achieved has been upset, and there’s little he can do to abate the changes.</p><p>Iwaizumi runs a hand through his hair. “I’d come more if I could, but school keeps me busy, and…” He shakes his head and throws it back, resting on the edge of the chair with a loud sigh. “Do you know why I wanted to go into athletic training?”</p><p>Oikawa shrugs half-heartedly. “You like the smell of icy hot spray in the morning?”</p><p>“No, dumbass, it’s cause of you.” Iwaizumi laces his fingers together and places them over his forehead, looking at the ceiling as if it’s the most interesting thing in the world. “When you hurt your knee the first time, I was <em>there</em>, and I couldn’t do anything to help you.”</p><p>Oikawa pinches the bridge of his nose in exasperation. “There was nothing you could do, Iwa-chan.”</p><p>“Bullshit, I could’ve done something.”</p><p>“It was an accident the first time,” Oikawa interjects.</p><p>“You were pushing yourself too hard! You <em>always</em> do!” Iwaizumi’s voice crackles as if sounding through the speakers of a laptop or phone. It’s something that Oikawa has become increasingly familiar with, but it hurts all the same no matter the medium he hears it from. “God damn it, Oikawa, I wanted to be a trainer to keep things like this from happening to people like you, and I do, but then you go ahead and do it all over again. You just love to prove me wrong, don’t you?!”</p><p>“Iwa—”</p><p>“And I wasn’t even in the same country this time to knock sense into your <em>fucking</em> head!”</p><p>Iwaizumi’s words reverberate through the small room, and all Oikawa can do is sit atop the stupid navy bedspread with a knee brace and ice pack, barely holding back tears. He wonders, for the hundredth time, if it was worth asking Iwaizumi to come to San Juan post-surgery. It is one thing to miss your best friend terribly, something fierce enough to make your heart twinge pitifully every time you think of him. It’s another thing entirely to make your best friend hurt with you.</p><p>He didn’t mean for things to go this way.</p><p>“Iwa-chan,” he says, and Iwaizumi tenses as if bracing himself, expecting a blow. But what comes instead is a simple, soft, “I missed you too.”</p><p>There’s a split second of silence, the span of a single heartbeat, and then Iwaizumi is rushing forward, and Oikawa finds home in the warm space in the crook of Iwaizumi’s neck as his friend embraces him tightly. His muscles are strong and solid against him—<em>really and truly there!</em>—and all Oikawa can do is tangle his fingers in the fabric of Iwaizumi’s sweatshirt and hold on tight.</p><p>They hug for some time, and when Iwaizumi pulls away, his eyes glimmer with unshed tears. Oikawa knows his own are a misty, murky brown, and there’s too much clogging up his throat and swelling in his pericardium to leave room for anything else.  Instead, he slowly scoots over in the bed to make room for Iwaizumi, who gingerly lays down beside him. He drifts off fast, exhaustion finally taking its claim, and Oikawa spends the next few hours watching his best friend sleep.</p><p>It’s perfect.</p><p> </p><p>*</p><p> </p><p>Iwaizumi stays in San Juan for a month, helping Oikawa through his post-op care and the beginning stages of rehab. They set up a cot in the corner of Oikawa’s bedroom, but more often than not, Iwaizumi finds himself joining him under the covers, which Oikawa won’t argue against.</p><p>Each day is hard. The rehabilitation process will be long and treacherous, but having Iwaizumi at his side finally makes him think that there’s another side to everything. That a torn ACL won’t be the end of his short-lived professional volleyball career. That he can still live in Argentina, but his heart will always reside in Iwaizumi’s careful hands back in California. That there’s more to life than hard work, determination, and the epitome of dreams he can only hope to one day reach.</p><p>That final day, at the airport in San Juan, Oikawa balances on two crutches and presses a quick kiss to Iwaizumi’s lips and watches a smile blossom like a South American sunrise. “Don’t be a stranger, Hajime,” he tells him softly, eyes sparkling. “I still need a trainer. I’ve still got a long ways to go.”</p><p>Hajime presses his own kiss to Oikawa’s forehead, ruffles his brown waves, and knocks their knuckles together in some sort of goodbye. “I’ll call you when I land, yeah?” And at Oikawa’s nod, he finally takes a few steps around. “You’ve got your 4-week follow-up tomorrow. Don’t miss it.”</p><p>“Please, Iwa-chan,” Oikawa says. “I’m the picture-perfect patient.”</p><p>Iwaizumi snorts, and a single tear streaks down his cheek. Both ignore it. “Take care of yourself, Tohru.” He turns on his heel but still pauses, casting a longing glance back at Oikawa. “I’ll miss you.”</p><p>Oikawa simply laughs and waves goodbye, and suddenly he’s thirteen again with a death sentence looming over his head, but all he can feel is invincible because he has Iwaizumi in his life.</p><p>His knee twinges below him, the San Juan sun at his back, and his heart feels full and happy in a way it hasn’t in five years.</p><p>It’s not a bad thing. Not bad, indeed.</p>
  </div></div>
</body>
</html>